


The Lives and Times of Henry Morgan

by emjwriter (EmSpeaks)



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Canon, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-17 03:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4650870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmSpeaks/pseuds/emjwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of vignettes in which I attempt to fill in the gaps of Henry Morgan's history, both before and after his first "death."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Family Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief scene in which Henry tells his father of his plans for the future

“You must be mad, Henry.”

“No, Father.” Henry had been dreading this conversation, knowing the difficulties involved. But his father was a good man. Surely he would see reason, and have compassion. “I have never been more convinced of anything in all my life. This is what I must do—I know it. All my studies have led me to this moment. It is perfectly sensible, and cannot be madness.”

“You think the mad do not have their own convictions?” John Morgan asked his son. “You think that their madness is not truth to them? Surely a  _doctor_  must know these things.”

The young scholar tried to remain calm, keeping his tone even. He licked his dry lips and swallowed before continuing. “I know you jest with me, Father, but it will not change my mind.”

“Since you were a child, we had agreed that you would lead the shipping company after I am gone—or too old and frail to remain at my post. If your mother were here—”

“She would say that I must find my own way,” Henry interrupted. “And I have found it! I want to be a doctor. I  _will_  be. Father, I want to study medicine, and understand the human body, to learn to heal sickness and cheat death. I have no desire—nor the talent—to count figures in a ledger or scour the county for the best price for lumber.”

The elder Morgan said nothing, but set down his wine glass and stood from his upholstered chair. Henry waited, knowing he had spoken enough for the moment.

“Look around you, son,” John Morgan finally said, making a vague gesture at the room around them. Paintings in the classical style hung on wallpapered walls, depicting scenes of still life, legends, and portraits. Thick curtains hung around tall windows that let in the last of the evening light, while bright flames crackled in the fireplace opposite. The light glinted off fine drinking glasses that rested on a shining silver tray.

“My efforts, and the hard work of my father, allowed you to be reared in luxuries the likes of which our ancestors dared not dream. Yet you would turn your back on the commerce, the ships, the  _figures_ , that granted you all this?”

Henry was unsure what to say, not wanting to seem ungrateful. His father was a reasonable man, and rarely employed guilt in his arguments.

“As a doctor,” John Morgan continued, “you will not find such profit or luxury. Oh, I suppose you’ll have the gratitude and respect of your patients, if you prove yourself capable. And that will be all the payment you receive, in some cases. But otherwise, it will be nothing but blood and sweat and puke for you all day—and you may well die yourself from inhaling such foul air. And you shall receive first blame for many a death, I’d wager, too.”

Indeed, Henry had considered that, but the nobility of the profession, and the vast need for it, had outweighed such dismal prospects.

“Be assured, Father, that I am more than thankful for what I have—what you have given me. But medicine is a noble pursuit, and I intend to follow in the footsteps of great masters and philosophers in studying it.” He paused briefly before playing his last card. “Would it not be of more use to concentrate my studies where my interest has already settled? I would make a miserable merchant, I assure you, no matter how much I may learn about trade. My cousin William has a quick mind, and a temperament better suited for this kind of work. Might he not be a worthy successor?”

The elder Morgan frowned, but Henry knew it as his father’s thoughtful expression. His heart beat a little faster as he dared to hope. His father was considering the idea, at least, Henry could tell.


	2. Adventures in Med School

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a much different tone than the previous chapter. If you think it sounds absurd, well, it's based on a true account from a real 18th-century med student. I basically just changed the names and added Henry.

Henry awoke with a start, flinching away from the hand that had unceremoniously shaken him from sleep. The darkness that filled the room was pierced by a tiny yellow flame. He flinched again when he saw the light flickering upward, over the features of Mr. Archer, making the young man’s fleshy cheeks and heavy-lidded eyes look gaunt and sinister.

“Time for our errand,” his schoolmate whispered, and Henry’s memory fully returned. His mouth went dry almost instantly at the thought of the grisly task ahead of them.

“A waste of time, undressing for bed,” Mr. Archer said impatiently as Henry pulled on trousers and stockings and buttoned his shirt.

“I forgot,” Henry said, but they both knew it to be a lie. Henry Morgan never forgot anything. And one’s first grave robbery would instill sufficient dread to sharpen even the most absent mind.

The doctor’s towering manservant, Hobson, and their fellow student George Hall awaited them downstairs, but they gave barely a nod before setting off from the house.

The quartet was as quiet as possible, darting from shadow to shadow through the abandoned late-night streets, keeping close to the edges without disturbing the other sleeping residents or risking notice by anyone else who might be about. It was too dark and they were too rushed to be vigilant in their individual footsteps, however. Several times, Henry held back cries of disgust or groans of disappointment as his shoes trod through piles of dung and mud. Although he had resolved to show no fear, Henry could not help but wonder if his inner thoughts had betrayed him anyway.

Fortunately, if his companions noticed, they did not say so. In fact, it was likely that they did not, for as they all drew closer to the cemetery, the other medical students seemed to grow braver. Hobson was as hulking and silent as ever, but Mr. Archer and Mr. Hall took on easier strides, loosened their grips on their tools, and allowed their whispers to grow more frequent, even punctuating them with the occasional chuckle.

By the time they reached the low stone wall that marked the boundary of the graveyard and saw the markers of stone and wood scattered beyond, the whole errand seemed nothing but a lark to the others. Henry’s throat was as dry as ever, and his palms were slick with nervous perspiration such that he was in constant fear of dropping his shovel.

They were not long in searching before they found the unmarked grave.

“Well done, lads!” Mr. Hall whispered. He set down his lantern and took a shovel from Hobson. “See, Morgan? Nothing to it.”

“Are you sure this is the right grave?” Henry asked, his quavering whisper betraying his nerves.

“Don’t be a coward,” Mr. Archer said. “Get to work, come on, before we’re heard.”

“But the soil looks too flat to have been moved today,” Henry said. “It couldn’t have settled so much in only a few hours.”

“Like as not it wasn’t deep enough,” Mr. Hall said. “The digger was lazy, I’d wager. There hasn’t been another hanging in days, and I don’t see a single sprout on the mound.”

“But it has been cooler, and—”

“Oh, shut it, Morgan, or we’ll be putting  _you_ in that hole once we get the wench out.” Mr. Archer turned to Hobson. “This is it, ain’t it?”

“I seen ‘em here after the hanging,” the manservant grunted.

The others took his word as gospel, and Henry lost the heart to argue further. He submitted to the long, tedious, backbreaking work of shoveling grave dirt. At last, their shovels and picks struck wood. Henry threw his aside and ran a sleeve across his brow, though by now both were equally sodden and streaked with earth. Mr. Hall jumped down with a little too much gusto and practically clawed at the coffin lid, while Mr. Archer went to retrieve the lantern. Henry was glad for the scant light, as it made it less likely that the others would notice his disgust and distress at the sound of wood creaking and snapping.

“Ah, bugger me bloody!” Mr. Hall groaned, much too loudly. “God damn your sorry arse to hell!”

“What is it, man?” Mr. Archer asked. “And tell it quietly, we’re not here to  _wake_  the dead.”

The young man’s voice was choked when he replied. “It’s the wrong sodding corpse, that’s what it is!”

It was then that Henry’s nose fully caught the putrid stench of ripe, rotting flesh. The odor of recent death was familiar to him, after working on the bodies of the dead, or patients who were close enough to it. But he had not yet needed to smell a corpse that had rotted for days in its grave.

 _Small wonder Mary and Martha were appalled by Christ’s suggestion to open Lazarus’ tomb_ , he found himself thinking.

“Put the lid back, you stupid ass, before those vapors make us all ill!” Mr. Archer said.

Henry’s stomach was churning, and the bile was rising in his throat.  _I must be brave_ , he thought.  _For the sake of the profession, I must not be weak_.

“What’ll we do?” Mr. Archer asked. “We’ve wasted half the night, and the doctor will have our hides, if the mob don’t find us first.”

“Hold on,” Mr. Hall said, sounding less choked once the had scraped the lid back over the coffin, saving them from the foul vapors and whatever dangers they posed. “There’s another box beside it. I just see it stickin’ out. That’s got to be the one we want.”

“Come on, then, before it’s too light!” Mr. Archer jumped down into the pit beside his comrade, and they hacked at the dirt from the side.

Hobson began to dig from above, and, after a few more gulps of freshening air, Henry joined him.

 _Perhaps my stomach will grow stronger with time and exercise, just as muscles do,_  he thought. Still, he shuddered inwardly at the thought of repeating the evening’s activity in the future. The prospect of cutting up the corpse was even more repugnant than usual, now that he was responsible for its acquisition. He thought of his father, sitting back in his armchair, with some tobacco and a list of figures, grooming his cousin William to take over the shipping business in Henry’s place. His heart sank, and not for the first time that evening.

The second coffin was, indeed, the one they had wanted. By the time the students had exhumed the body and dumped her into a sack with little ceremony, Henry’s stomach was roiling again. His discomfort now was less from the smell of death and a brief glimpse of the dead woman’s face and more from the idea of John Morgan somehow—God forbid!—learning of what his son had done tonight.

 _For the glory of Medicine and the enlightenment of our successors,_ he reminded himself.  _Our wickedness here will yield far more good, Father, I promise._

“ _You must be mad, Henry,”_ his father had told him. At the time, Henry had insisted that he was not. But now, covered in dirt and sweat, fatigued and nauseated, Henry looked at the muddy shovels he carried, and the bag slung over the manservant’s shoulder, and he began to wonder.


	3. Awash at Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is set right after Henry’s first death (in 1814, according to Wikipedia). Possibly a part one of two.

With no one to rescue him, Henry Morgan died twice more on that voyage. He had not yet come to grips with his first resurrection before he found himself wasting away from dehydration. He tried to avoid the temptation to drink the briny liquid that surrounded him for miles, but as he bobbed in the waves, naked and untethered, those waves occasionally found their way into his gasping mouth. His muscles began to stiffen, until one hot, sunny afternoon, he fell into unconsciousness. Henry Morgan’s second death came twice by water—first the lack of it, and then too much of it.

Once again, he emerged from the depths. His navigation skills were insufficient to tell if he kept returning to the coordinates at which he had been thrown overboard, or if he re-awoke at the same place he had died. Every wave looked much like the next, and the days followed suit. He noted the position of the sun by day and the constellations by night—when there were no clouds—but it did little to help him when he did not know the position of the  _Empress of Africa_  when it had abandoned him.

His next death was a more direct form of drowning, during an afternoon of particularly tumultuous weather. The waves rose above his head, and with nothing to cling to, he grew too weak to fight them and keep himself afloat. After the initial terror, the burning pain in his lungs, the moment of surreal calm and acceptance, and the final sink into sleep, Henry emerged again from the waves, gasping with renewed life and strength. What had begun as a miracle was already growing tedious.

 _Is this how my father’s sins are visited upon his descendants?_  Henry wondered. There was no earthly, rational way to explain what had happened—what  _kept_  happening. Henry Morgan was a physician. He had seen death in many forms. He had seen incredible cases in which patients on the brink of the hereafter made a great turnaround at their final moments. But he had never—nor had his teachers, mentors, or fellow students—seen a person pass fully out of this life, and then return. All men must die. Except, it seemed, for Henry Morgan.

He even had a blasphemous moment, after his second death, in which he wondered if he was the returning Christ. Bobbing among the waves, he just as quickly dismissed the idea. Surely if he were the Messiah, he would know it, and would be dressed with a little more dignity—or at all.

He had lost all track of time, and he was once again weak with exhaustion, hunger, and thirst, when he noticed sails on the horizon. At this point, he would welcome a French or American man-of-war if it meant a cup of unsalted water and dry clothes.

But it seemed his absurdly poor luck was changing. With the last of his strength—and hoping he would not die  _yet again_  with help so close—he pushed himself through the water. After an age, he was close enough to see that the ship flew English colors. Of course, that meant nothing if no one saw him. There was movement on the masts and among the rigging; surely someone could see this far. Finding himself without a voice, he waved his arms, praying that someone would notice him. At last his ears caught those sweet words.

“ _Man overboard!_ ”

His relief made the next moments a blur. Ropes were lowered, and Henry fumbled at them many times before he finally retained a grip enough to cling on while they hoisted him to the deck. Crew members wrapped several blankets around him, and someone pressed a cup of something into his shaking hands. Voices chattered around him.

“What ‘appened to your clothes, lad?”

“Where’d you come from—shipwreck?”

“Ain’t no sign of a shipwreck anywhere.”

“Silence on deck!” A broad-chested man in a blue officer’s uniform stepped forward, parting the crowd. His sunburnt brow was furrowed with concern, but there was an anxiety in his pale gray eyes, too.

“I am Weatherby, first lieutenant,” the officer said. “Pray tell, sir, who are you and how did you come to be…erm…in such a state?”

For all the time he had at sea to think, Henry had never quite decided what he would say if he were ever rescued. He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders and glanced around the crowded deck. He could not tell them who he really was, or what ship he had sailed on, that was certain enough. The slave trade had been illegal for seven years, and the Royal Navy was charged with seizing slave ships and treating their captains as pirates. His father and cousin had played a dangerous game of smuggling, and it was unlikely that the officers on this ship would believe Henry’s better intentions.

When it came to explaining how he came to be in his current state, the truth would not suffice there, either. No educated man would believe what Henry had gone through, and sailors were notoriously superstitious. If he told the whole truth, at best he would be locked up in the hold as a pirate and a lunatic. If by any chance they somehow believed that he had come back from the dead even once, he might be taken for a demon or some kind of sea-monster, and thrown right back overboard.

“Farrow,” he said, using his wife’s family name, the first that came to mind. “Henry Farrow. I sailed on the…” He tried to remember one of his father’s other ships. “…on the  _Siren’s Song_. I lost a fight and fell overboard. No one would help me back aboard, and they left me for dead.”

Weatherby looked at him suspiciously. Noticing the chatter among the crew, he shouted, “About your work, now!” He pointed to a young boy in a blue coat shabbier than his. “You there, Parker! Kindly inform the captain that we have picked up an  _Englishman_  lost in the water.” He turned back to Henry. “You are most fortunate to meet an English ship, with the waters so dangerous these days. We shall find you some clothes, and a place on board for as long as the captain’s hospitality holds out. To where was the  _Siren’s Song_ bound?”

“The West Indies,” Henry said, hoping the answer was enough. “But given…certain events…I believe I must make my way back to England.”

“Certain events?” the lieutenant repeated. “You lost a fight and now you have to run back with your tail between your legs?”

Henry kept silent, unsure what to tell the officer. Fortunately, Weatherby did not pause for long. “As it happens,” he continued, “we are sailing for Kingston, Jamaica, and then on to New Orleans—or as near as we can get. If the captain approves of your staying with us until then, you can disembark there and find another ship to take you…elsewhere.”

“Thank you, sir,” Henry said. “And…about those clothes?”


	4. Naval Medicine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one isn't the most exciting, but it's more of a bridge between the previous chapter and where I plan on taking this story (fingers crossed).

“I hope you realize, Mr. Farrow…I have no intention of _deliberately_ …showing you any disrespect.”

“Yes, sir, I understand,” Henry Morgan said.

Dried off and dressed in spare clothing gathered from among the crew, he stood in the captain's quarters of the frigate  _Sophia_ . Before him stood Captain Stephen Andrews, a man of short stature but with the temper of a much larger man. His small, dark eyes seemed to miss nothing, and every gesture was carefully calculated, an impression somewhat emphasized by his tendency to pause for breath.

“I am not in the habit of leaving men to die…not when something can be done about it,” Andrews continued. “But England is at war with Bonaparte…and the bloody Americans. Pirates and smugglers roam the seas like…swimming cockroaches. I'm afraid I cannot afford to trust a man…pulled out of the water with nothing but his name—and that I cannot confirm—even if he is an Englishman.”

“I can appreciate the dilemma, sir,” Henry said. “As far as you know, I could be anyone: an American spy, an ordinary criminal, a naval deserter. But, believe it or not, I am an educated physician.”

Henry could not lie about everything, after all. The skills of a physician were likely to come in handy on a naval ship, and might make the officers more inclined to trust him.

The captain scoffed. “An educated physician…who gets into fights?”

So Weatherby had passed on Henry's story to his commander. Well, it was to be expected. Henry would just have to remember every detail of his stories and make sure he kept to them. At least the captain was hardly in a position to make inquiries this far out at sea. And if circumstances deteriorated irrevocably, Henry now knew that suicide was a viable escape—more so than for other men.

“It was unbecoming of me, sir, but I had my reasons.” He cleared his throat and looked behind him, though the door to the captain's cabin was closed. He lowered his voice to what he hoped was a friendly, yet conspiratorial tone. “You of all men must know how superstitious a common sailor can be. Many of them have terribly unscientific minds, and those aboard the _Em—_ th-the _Siren's Song_ were among the worst. As a physician, I was using every resource at my disposal to heal them and save their lives. Sometimes that cannot be done without first worsening the pain. Many of them disliked my methods, and it came to an exchange of words and, finally, blows.”

The captain regarded him for a short moment before offering a “harrumph” and a nod. “Yes, well, Mr. Farrow, I can see how you might come up against…such opposition. I have seen similar fears among crews myself. But the  _Siren's Song_ must have had a poor commander, if the crew's fears were so strong…and their discipline so lax as to lead to your being thrown overboard.”

Henry felt compelled to shift his weight, to clear his throat, or to fidget with his hands, but he feared that any of those motions might give away his discomfort, and draw even more skepticism from Captain Andrews. He pursed his lips and said, with a tilt of his head, “Alas, sir, that is all too true.”

It was the commander who shifted his legs as he gave Henry another looking-over. With a more thoughtful tone, he said, “But you say you are a physician. I—and I'm sure my men—would appreciate your skills aboard the  _Sophia_ . In these troubled times, everyone on a ship must pull his weight. Your contribution would…perhaps ease the fears of your being a stranger in suspicious circumstances.”

Henry found the opportunity he had been hoping for. “I would have volunteered my services in any case, sir. I would begin this very moment.”

“Would you, indeed?” the shorter man said, one eyebrow twitching.

“With respect, captain, you have been nearly out of breath this whole time I have been in the room. Your legs also appear quite swollen, judging by the tight fabric of the lower half of your trousers. That indicates dropsy, which, with the labored breathing, suggests a potentially serious heart condition. If the ship's surgeon happens to have any foxglove extracts in his supplies, I would strongly recommend them for you, sir.”

The captain frowned, considering his words. “I see,” he said. “Thank you, Mr. Farrow, that will be all. About your work now.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And…if you would send a man after Mr. Hereford, the surgeon, I would be grateful.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Henry Morgan said, exiting the captain's quarters.

He kept his word, and began to work closely with Mr. Hereford aboard the frigate. Not since he had attended medical school did Henry encounter such a variety of symptoms and complaints. Even on a war ship, death in battle was relatively uncommon compared to death by disease—or accident. His first week aboard the  _Sophia_ , Henry saw no combat. The ship did encounter a French privateer, but the foreigner was in poor condition and gave up without a shot being fired.

In that same week, however, Henry set a broken leg, dressed burns, and begged sailors to consume lemon juice against scurvy. He diagnosed syphilis in three men who discovered that they had all enjoyed the company of the same woman when they were last in harbor. Henry tended an accidental gunshot wound, and stitched up a man stabbed by one of his fellows in a fit of drunken tempers. (Both men were later given a dozen lashes each for their drunkenness.) Henry also attended the watery burial of a boy who died after falling from the foretop.

Given how suspicious Captain Andrews had been, and how borderline-hostile Weatherby remained, Henry feared that Mr. Hereford would resent his presence and his help. Fortunately, the man—slightly older than Henry—had little formal medical training, and was eager to hear what Henry had learned in his studies. Mr. Hereford, in fact, was a graduate of the Veterinary College in London, and had been more butcher than surgeon when he was kidnapped by a particularly desperate press gang. With no family waiting in England, he learned to appreciate life at sea and had remained in the navy. His knowledge of human health and anatomy had all been learned on a ship, so Henry's help was welcomed with enthusiasm.

“The captain ought to keep you with us,” he said one day as Henry showed him how to use and mix several medicines.

“I doubt his hospitality will last beyond Jamaica,” Henry said, scraping the last precious bit of camphor from a small jar. “In any case, I am not pressed into service, officially, and I _would_ like to return to my wife.”

“I could concentrate on keeping the livestock healthy while you see to the men,” Mr. Hereford said. “And why do you want to go back now? I thought you were already going to the West Indies before we found you.”

Henry was silent as he concentrated, and then said, “Plans change.”

“Does it have to do with how you were…ejected from the _Siren's Song_?”

“Perhaps.”

Mr. Hereford smiled. “For a man so eager to share his scientific knowledge, you are very miserly with personal details.”

“When I was tossed into that water, I lost everything I had with me. I…thought I would lose my life, as well. But now _that_ is all I have left, and I would like to keep it to myself as much as I can.”

“As you like, Mr. Farrow.”

 


End file.
